Product Launch Archives - Tahir Shahzad

Why We Stopped Using PayPal: Lessons from an E-Commerce Experience

Posted on November 21, 2024 - 1:34 pm by Tahir Shahzad

As a business owner navigating the complexities of digital payments, my experience with PayPal left me with valuable lessons and, admittedly, a few frustrations. While PayPal is a market leader in payment gateways with a significant user base, our journey highlighted critical challenges when dealing with chargebacks and fraud prevention. This post isn’t about placing blame, but rather sharing our experience to help others facing similar issues.

The Scenario: Launching a B2C Platform for Digital Goods

We launched a B2C platform for digital goods, where customers could purchase and instantly receive their products via email. Due to the nature of digital goods—instantaneous delivery without a return or refund option—we implemented rigorous security measures to minimize risks. These included:

Strict transaction rules: Monitoring the number of transactions, purchase limits, and suspicious patterns like repeated CVV attempts.
Email verification: Blocking temporary emails and requiring 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) for account access.
3D Secure compliance: For card payments, we adhered to industry standards to ensure secure transactions.

Our cautious approach did cost us some potential sales, but it helped us safeguard against fraudulent transactions and reduce chargeback risks.

Fraudulent Behavior Patterns

E-commerce payment gateways often expose businesses to patterns of fraudulent behavior, including:

Mass Attempts: Hundreds of purchase attempts originating from the same IP address within a short timeframe, typically an indicator of automated or malicious activity.
Incremental Fraud: Fraudsters systematically testing multiple card numbers, expiration dates, or CVVs in an attempt to find a working combination and exploit the system.
Chargeback Abuse: Customers intentionally filing disputes or claiming “unauthorized transactions” after receiving goods or services, exploiting lenient refund policies.
Account Takeovers: Fraudsters gaining unauthorized access to legitimate user accounts to make purchases, often bypassing basic security checks.

Such activities not only strain security measures but also highlight the critical need for robust fraud prevention protocols to protect both businesses and customers.

The Challenge: Using PayPal for Payments

Given PayPal’s market presence, we integrated it as one of our payment gateways. The customer journey was simple: users would select PayPal at checkout, redirect to the PayPal platform to log in and authorize the payment, and return to our system with the transaction details. On paper, it looked like a seamless and secure process.

However, chargebacks labeled as “Unauthorized Transactions” began to surface, and they were a game-changer.

The Problem with Chargebacks

Chargebacks are an unavoidable part of e-commerce, but they often pose significant challenges, particularly when it comes to handling “Unauthorized Transactions.” Our experience highlighted several recurring issues:

Email Discrepancies: Some customers registered on our platform with one email and used a different email for their payment gateway account (e.g., PayPal). While this is technically valid, it created confusion and complications when chargebacks were filed, making it difficult to verify user identities.
User Authorization Uncertainty: Even after implementing robust security measures like 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) for both our platform and payment gateway-associated emails, customers continued to flag transactions as “Unauthorized.” This raised questions about who truly had access to and control over these accounts, leaving businesses in a vulnerable position during disputes.
Family or Shared Accounts: Payment accounts shared among family members or used for group purchases often led to disputes when one party claimed not to have authorized the transaction, even though the purchase was made using legitimate account credentials.
Delayed Chargebacks: Customers sometimes initiated chargebacks weeks or months after the purchase, long after the digital goods had been delivered. This created a scenario where businesses had limited ability to dispute the claims, especially for non-returnable digital products.
Lack of Evidence Weighting: Evidence submitted to dispute a chargeback—such as delivery confirmations or user authentication logs—seemed to carry less weight in decisions, leaving businesses with little recourse.

These issues underscore the complexity of managing chargebacks and the importance of both customer education and proactive fraud prevention measures to reduce disputes and protect the business.

Our Solution: Removing PayPal

After losing a significant amount to chargebacks and exhausting every possible option to improve transaction security, we made the difficult decision to remove PayPal as a payment gateway. This was not a decision we took lightly, as we fully recognize the value and widespread adoption of PayPal in the e-commerce world. It is one of the most trusted and convenient payment platforms for customers, offering seamless transactions and a familiar user experience.

However, for a digital goods platform like ours—where fraud prevention is critical and chargebacks pose unique challenges—we found it increasingly difficult to balance security and usability with PayPal. Our business model requires us to ensure the legitimacy of every transaction because digital goods, once delivered, cannot be returned or refunded. Despite our best efforts, including robust fraud prevention measures, the chargeback process with PayPal created vulnerabilities that we couldn’t effectively mitigate.

Why We Couldn’t Make PayPal Work

Limited Verification Options: Unlike card payment gateways that utilize mechanisms like 3D Secure, PayPal’s system offered limited verification capabilities for customers purchasing digital goods. This made it harder to authenticate the legitimacy of transactions.
Chargeback Risks: For digital goods, chargebacks labeled as “Unauthorized Transactions” often left us with little recourse, as digital products cannot be physically returned. Despite providing evidence of delivery and authentication, disputes often ended in favor of the customer.
Fraudulent Behavior: PayPal’s user-friendly interface, while beneficial for customers, made it easier for fraudsters to exploit the platform. Patterns of incremental fraud, shared accounts, and delayed chargebacks created significant financial risks.
Mismatch with Our Security Standards: Our platform relied on strict security protocols, such as 2FA, email validation, and IP monitoring. Integrating PayPal, with its less stringent user verification, created inconsistencies that exposed us to unnecessary vulnerabilities.

Lessons Learned

While PayPal remains an excellent choice for many businesses, particularly those dealing with physical goods or services that allow returns, it proved to be a poor fit for our specific needs. For digital goods platforms, where fraud prevention and irreversible transactions are critical, these challenges made PayPal an unsustainable solution.

This decision has allowed us to focus on alternative payment gateways that better align with our security requirements, offering advanced fraud detection, tighter user verification, and more robust chargeback dispute mechanisms.

A Word of Advice to Other Businesses

If your business model involves digital goods or services, consider the following before integrating PayPal or similar platforms:

Assess Your Fraud Risks: Evaluate the risk of chargebacks and unauthorized transactions in your industry.
Explore Additional Verification Layers: Look for payment gateways offering tools like 3D Secure, enhanced fraud detection, and multi-factor authentication.
Monitor Patterns: Continuously analyze customer behavior to identify potential fraud trends.
Communicate Clear Policies: Set clear refund and chargeback policies to minimize misunderstandings and disputes.

Removing PayPal was a tough but necessary decision for our business. While we appreciate its role as a leading payment gateway, we had to prioritize the security and sustainability of our platform. This experience has taught us valuable lessons that we hope will help others navigate similar challenges in the ever-evolving e-commerce landscape.

Still Seeking Solutions

While we’ve moved away from PayPal, the challenges we faced have not discouraged us from seeking better solutions to balance security, user convenience, and fraud prevention in our payment processes. Removing PayPal was a strategic decision based on our specific needs as a digital goods platform, but the broader issue of managing fraud and chargebacks remains a significant focus.

Advocating for Better Chargeback Mechanisms

As we navigate these challenges, it’s evident that the industry as a whole needs better mechanisms to address chargebacks, particularly for digital goods. We believe:

Payment gateways should provide more context-specific options for merchants dealing with non-returnable items.
Evidence provided by merchants, such as delivery confirmations or customer authentication logs, should carry greater weight in chargeback disputes.
Collaboration between merchants, payment providers, and customers needs to improve to prevent misuse of chargeback systems.

A Commitment to Continuous Improvement

Despite the hurdles, we remain committed to finding solutions that protect our platform and customers. The e-commerce landscape is constantly evolving, and staying ahead requires a mix of innovation, collaboration, and adaptation. We are optimistic that with continued effort, we’ll achieve a secure and efficient payment ecosystem that aligns with our business needs and customer expectations.

For now, we continue to test and implement measures that not only reduce fraud but also enhance the trust and transparency of our platform. This is an ongoing journey, and we’re determined to turn these challenges into opportunities for growth and improvement.

Disclaimer: This post reflects my personal experience and is intended to share insights with other professionals. It does not represent PayPal’s official practices or policies.

The Tech Alchemy of Product Management

Posted on September 18, 2024 - 6:06 pm by Tahir Shahzad

In today’s fast-paced world of business and technology, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that certifications alone define your capabilities as a project or product manager. Over the years, I’ve completed certifications like the Google Project Management via Coursera and earned my CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner) via Scrum Alliance. I’ve also taken few micro-certifications. While these courses taught me valuable knowledge about tools, frameworks, and methodologies, the truth is, project and product management goes far beyond certifications.

These programs helped me understand the core elements and gave me exposure to important practices in the industry. However, I truly mastered these skills only by getting my hands dirty, leading teams, and solving real-world challenges. I’ve realized that project and product management can’t be entirely taught in a classroom—it’s about leadership, handling tough situations, and making decisions when everything’s on the line.

Leadership Over Certifications

Being a project or product manager is more about leadership than technical expertise. Leadership is a skill that isn’t granted by a certificate; it’s developed through experience. Some people excel in technical skills but struggle with leadership, while others naturally have the ability to inspire, organize, and lead without formal training.

Simon Sinek, a leadership expert, illustrates this well with his example from the Marine Corps. He explains that potential officers undergo six weeks of intense training where they can quit at any time. This training is designed to weed out those who don’t want to be leaders. As Sinek puts it, “The first criterion to being a leader is you have to want to be one.” Leadership is tough—it can be thankless, lonely, and incredibly challenging. But in project and product management, it’s what makes the difference between success and failure.

One thing I’ve learned from my experiences is that no certification can prepare you for the real-world challenges you face in the field. For instance, I once led a project demonstration where everything seemed perfect—until the solution failed due to an unexpected angle of sunlight affecting the camera. This was something we hadn’t encountered before, and no textbook or course could have prepared me for the heat of that moment, both literally and figuratively. I had to accept the failure gracefully and quickly think on my feet, acknowledging the problem while managing the client’s expectations, all while battling my own internal guilt.

Balancing Personal and Professional Commitments

Being a project manager often requires balancing personal and professional responsibilities—another aspect no certification can fully prepare you for. I remember a time when my employer used me as an example of dedication to others because I traveled across the country for a work commitment the day after my wedding. This might seem extreme to many, but I had made a commitment well before my marriage date was set. It was my responsibility to manage both my personal and professional commitments, and I did so by discussing it with my family and gaining their support rather than walking away from the commitment.

Leadership in project and product management often means making these tough calls—balancing your time, keeping your promises, and staying accountable, no matter how challenging the circumstances.

Practical Experience vs. Theoretical Knowledge

It’s easy to say things like, “know your customer” or “interview your users,” but putting these principles into practice is much more difficult. During one project, I found myself standing next to an attendance device at a hospital, observing how random person interact with the device and how staff used it to clock in and out. On the surface, this might sound simple, but the discomfort of standing there as a stranger, taking mental notes on behavior, is not something a certification teaches you. It’s the hands-on learning and the real-time observations that help you understand your customer in ways a classroom cannot. A funny aspect, a guest used this device to many times on different days to comb hair.

Another time, I launched a solution for a client whose business handled thousands of dollars in weekly transactions. The pressure of ensuring nothing went wrong was immense. I couldn’t sleep or eat, not because it was part of my job description, but because I knew the stakes were incredibly high. I stayed awake, monitoring every detail, even though I wasn’t being paid for those extra hours. Certifications can teach you how to plan for a launch, but only experience can prepare you for the reality of it.

Leadership in High-Stakes Situations

Leadership is about how you handle pressure, especially when things go wrong. Simon Sinek often speaks about leadership as the responsibility to help those around you rise, even when it’s hard. Leadership isn’t about delegating tasks or following a checklist—it’s about stepping up when the stakes are high and taking responsibility for the outcome.

No certification prepared me for the time when I was in front of a room of clients, sweating both from the physical heat and the internal pressure, when a solution failed due to a reason no one could have foreseen. Leadership, not certification, is what allowed me to remain calm, accept the failure, and offer a plan for improvement.

Handling Unique Challenges

Every project brings its own set of unique challenges, and learning by doing is the only way to normalize those experiences. Certifications are useful for providing a foundation, but it’s the real-world situations that truly shape you as a manager. Whether it’s troubleshooting technical failures on the fly, balancing personal and professional commitments, or standing by a solution you launched while facing the risks, the true essence of project and product management lies in how you navigate uncertainty and lead in moments of crisis.

Conclusion: Experience Over Certification

In the end, while certifications like the Google Project Management Course or CSPO have given me valuable tools, the reality is that project and product management is about leadership, not certificates. It’s about having the ability to make tough decisions, take responsibility, and guide a team through unexpected challenges. Certifications provide a strong foundation, but leadership is something you develop through practice, persistence, and navigating real-world challenges. Leadership is a skill anyone can learn, but it’s only mastered through experience. As a project or product manager, your real growth happens when you’re in the field, handling situations no certification could have ever predicted.

Technical Product Managers: The Bridge Between Development and Business Success

Posted on September 12, 2024 - 7:20 pm by Tahir Shahzad

In today’s fast-paced technology landscape, Technical Product Managers (TPMs) are essential for the success of modern product launches and continuous improvements. TPMs uniquely blend technical expertise with strategic business acumen, allowing them to bridge the gap between development teams and business stakeholders. Unlike traditional product managers, TPMs dive deeper into the technical side, working closely with engineers while keeping an eye on the product’s market fit and customer satisfaction.

As someone with experience in full-stack web development and AI/machine learning engineering, I’ve seen firsthand how crucial the TPM role is in delivering successful, scalable products. In startups especially, where resources are limited, the ability to wear multiple hats—including solution architect, project manager, and developer—becomes critical. This comprehensive skill set makes Technical Product Managers a driving force behind well-executed product launches and ongoing product success.

The Role of a Technical Product Manager in Product Development

In any successful product launch, the Product Manager is responsible for ensuring that the right product is built—one that aligns with customer needs, market demands, and business goals. Their role is to define the vision, prioritize features, and make sure the product addresses the right problems. However, the Technical Lead and the Development Team are responsible for building it right. This means they focus on the technical execution, ensuring the product is developed with scalability, performance, and maintainability in mind.

The Technical Product Manager bridges these two areas, ensuring that the product being built not only meets the business objectives but is also technically sound, guiding both the Product Manager and the technical team to stay aligned on both the “what” and the “how” of product development.

Product Manager (PM)

PMs focus on defining the product vision, understanding customer needs, and aligning the roadmap with business objectives. Their primary goal is to ensure the product meets the market’s demands.

Delivery Manager

Delivery Managers oversee the execution of the product, ensuring timelines, resources, and budgets are on track. They work closely with the engineering team to deliver on the defined goals.

Technical Product Manager (TPM)

A TPM does more than manage the product; they dive deep into the technical side, understanding the architecture, technology stack, and development hurdles. They ensure the product is feasible, scalable, and aligned with both business goals and technical realities.

Where Technical Product Managers Thrive

TPMs are particularly valuable in certain environments and projects where their skill set stands out:

Highly Technical Products

Products involving APIs, machine learning, cloud services, or complex backend architectures benefit immensely from TPMs. They can translate technical constraints to business leaders while guiding developers in building the right solution.

Startups

In startups, where teams are lean, TPMs play multiple roles. I’ve often taken on responsibilities like designing solution architectures, engaging developers, and ensuring the product’s technical alignment with business needs. Startups need this versatility to stay competitive and efficient.

Cross-functional Teams

When multiple teams—like frontend developers, backend engineers, and machine learning specialists—work together, a TPM bridges the gaps, ensuring smooth communication and integration across departments.

My Experience Bridging Technical Teams

There have been many adventures but I would like to share one piece from my past where we built a facial recognition-based attendance solution, involving both a web team skilled in APIs and a machine learning team focused on training AI models. The teams had little overlap in expertise, which led to challenges in integrating their work into a cohesive product.

With my technical knowledge and leadership skills, I acted as the bridge between these teams. I worked with the web team to design an API that could seamlessly handle data flow from the front end, while coordinating with the machine learning team to ensure their models were integrated efficiently. This collaboration resulted in a scalable, real-time solution that effectively processed facial recognition data for attendance tracking. My technical understanding allowed me to foresee bottlenecks and prevent them before they became major issues.

The Role of a Technical Product Manager in Product Success

A successful product launch requires coordination, technical insight, and stakeholder management—all key strengths of a Technical Product Manager (TPM). TPMs play a critical role in bridging the gap between development teams and business leaders, managing complex technical details, and ensuring that everyone is aligned toward the same goal.

Wearing Multiple Hats:
During product launches, TPMs often juggle multiple responsibilities, including solution architecture, project management, and technical leadership. For example, while launching a scalable AI-powered platform, I had to design the backend infrastructure, manage timelines, and oversee the development team—all while ensuring that the technical decisions were aligned with the launch’s business objectives and budget constraints.
Solution Design:
In the high-pressure phase of product launch, TPMs take a lead role in designing systems that are both scalable and reliable. I’ve had to design backend architectures that could handle a sudden influx of users post-launch, ensuring that the infrastructure was robust enough to maintain performance under growing traffic without disruptions.
Developer Engagement:
TPMs play a key role in keeping developers aligned with the product’s vision and technical requirements. I’ve worked closely with development teams to ensure they understand both the technical challenges and the broader business context. This prevents common issues like technical debt and keeps the project on track, ensuring a successful launch.
Stakeholder Management:
One of the most critical roles of a TPM during a product launch is managing expectations and communication with stakeholders. Whether it’s business leaders, marketing teams, or external clients, keeping everyone informed and aligned is essential. I’ve managed stakeholders by providing regular updates, explaining technical decisions in business terms, and ensuring that launch goals remain clear to all parties. This not only ensures smoother decision-making but also reduces last-minute changes that can jeopardize a launch.

Key Skills and Qualities of a Technical Product Manager

Technical Product Managers bring a unique blend of skills that make them critical for product success. From my experience, here are the key qualities that make TPMs stand out:

Technical Expertise: A TPM needs in-depth knowledge of the technology stack, including APIs, cloud infrastructure, and AI/ML workflows. This allows them to validate technical solutions and troubleshoot issues alongside developers.
Strategic Vision: TPMs must always consider how technical decisions align with business goals. They need to ensure that the product is not only functional but also profitable and scalable.
Problem-solving and Bottleneck Prevention: One of my primary responsibilities is identifying and eliminating bottlenecks early. Whether it’s optimizing a machine learning pipeline or ensuring that APIs are scalable, TPMs must proactively address challenges before they hinder progress.
Collaboration and Communication: A TPM serves as the bridge between technical teams and non-technical stakeholders. My role as a liaison between web and machine learning teams on various projects has taught me that clear communication and collaboration are key to success.
Empathy and Leadership: A TPM must balance user needs with developer constraints. I make sure to approach problems from both perspectives, ensuring that the final product meets customer expectations while supporting developers with clear direction and technical insights.
Agility and Adaptability: In fast-paced environments, TPMs must be able to pivot quickly, adjusting to new challenges or changes in market demand. My experience in startups has honed my ability to remain agile, ensuring that projects stay on course even when priorities shift.

Conclusion: Building the Right Solution the Right Way

The role of a Technical Product Manager is critical to ensuring product success, especially in highly technical fields and startup environments. TPMs not only focus on building the right solution for customers but also ensure that it’s being built the right way. My experiences in AI, full-stack web development, and startups have shown that TPMs are indispensable in managing technical complexity, aligning development teams, and driving successful product launches.

By bridging the gap between technical teams and business stakeholders, TPMs provide the leadership needed to ensure a product’s success, both at launch and through continuous improvement. With the right skills and mindset, a Technical Product Manager can be the key to delivering products that scale, innovate, and meet the market’s demands.

Building a Product from Scratch: A Step-by-Step Guide for Startups

Posted on September 4, 2024 - 6:59 pm by Tahir Shahzad

Building a product from scratch is an exciting journey—one that offers the opportunity to create something innovative, solve real-world problems, and, hopefully, make a lasting impact in the market. However, the process of building a product from the ground up also comes with its own set of challenges, risks, and pitfalls. For startups, getting it right from the start can make all the difference between success and failure.

As someone who has navigated this terrain and learned through trial and error, I understand both the excitement and the pressure of starting fresh. In this guide, I’ll share personal experiences and insights gained over the years, as well as a step-by-step approach to building a successful product from scratch.

Challenges of Joining Existing Projects vs. Building from Scratch

When you’re part of a startup, building from scratch is a whole different game compared to working on existing products. I’ve had experiences working in both environments—joining established projects where decisions were already made and starting from a blank canvas. Each has its pros and cons.

In established projects, there’s often a structured foundation, and it’s easier to blend into an existing workflow. However, sometimes you inherit baggage—legacy systems, clunky code, or team dynamics that may be resistant to change. I recall one project where, as a frontend developer, I was told we wouldn’t use Bootstrap because the senior team believed it was bloated with unnecessary features. Instead, we aimed to achieve responsiveness and cross-browser compatibility with minimal custom CSS. Fast forward one year: the CSS file became larger than the entire Bootstrap library! It was clear we could have saved time and effort by leveraging existing frameworks.

On the other hand, building a product from scratch offers flexibility and the freedom to define the project’s DNA. You get to make decisions that shape the future of the product. But it also requires foresight, careful planning, and an openness to learning from mistakes. It’s easy to get sidetracked by “ShaShka” features (as we called them)—fancy, non-essential bells and whistles that can derail focus from core functionality. I experienced this firsthand while leading a team tasked with building a proof of concept under a tight deadline. We got bogged down with non-core features and ended up sacrificing essential components. Ultimately, the project didn’t win the contract, and the team was disillusioned.

Building a product is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s crucial to adopt the right mindset and prepare for an ongoing, iterative process.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Product from Scratch

To guide startups on this journey, let’s break down the process into actionable steps that can help you avoid common mistakes, deliver on time, and build a product that stands out.

1. Start with a Strong Vision

Everything begins with a clear vision. What problem are you solving? Who is your target audience? Why is your product important? Your vision should be simple but compelling, providing a North Star for your team and stakeholders to follow.

The vision isn’t just a “nice to have”; it’s essential for guiding every decision that comes later. It keeps you focused on the core objectives and ensures that you don’t get distracted by features or trends that don’t align with your ultimate goals. Make sure that everyone involved—whether it’s developers, designers, or business leaders—understands and buys into this vision. Here are some abstract-level tools to help:

Product Vision Board: A visual tool to communicate long-term goals and strategy.
North Star Metric: A single key metric that represents your product’s core value to users.
Personas: Fictional profiles representing target users, ensuring the product addresses their specific needs.
Lean Canvas: A one-page framework that outlines key elements like customer segments, problems, and solutions.
KPIs: Metrics to track progress and ensure alignment with business goals.

2. Validate Your Idea

Before you commit resources to development, validate your product idea. This is a critical step that many startups skip in their eagerness to start building. Validation means testing your idea with real users, potential customers, or experts in the industry.

You can start small: create surveys, conduct interviews, or build a basic prototype (MVP) to gather feedback. Early validation helps you identify whether your product solves a real problem and whether there’s a market for it. This process can save you time and money by identifying issues before you’re too deep into development.

Here are some effective methods to validate your product idea:

Minimal Viable Product (MVP): An MVP is the simplest version of your product that includes only the core features. It allows you to test the waters with real users and gather feedback before committing to a full build. By launching an MVP, you can see how your target audience reacts and make data-driven decisions on how to proceed.
Surveys and Interviews: Conducting surveys and interviews with potential customers is a quick way to validate demand. Ask targeted questions to understand user pain points, preferences, and whether your product addresses their needs. This approach gives you direct insights into what your audience wants.
Mockups and Prototypes: Creating visual mockups or interactive prototypes can help bring your idea to life without extensive development. Tools like Figma or Adobe XD allow you to showcase a clickable version of your product, giving users something tangible to react to. Feedback from mockups can guide design and functionality decisions early in the process.
Landing Pages: A simple landing page describing your product, paired with a call to action (e.g., email signups or pre-orders), can gauge interest. It’s a quick way to validate whether people are excited about your product before you invest in development.

Please note, as a goodwill gesture, many people will say your idea is good. But as a startup, it’s your job to assess whether these people are willing to make payments. After all, what’s the use of a great idea that nobody wants to buy?

Using these validation methods helps avoid building a product nobody wants. It ensures your time and resources are invested wisely, focusing on solutions that resonate with real user needs.

3. Build a Minimal Viable Product (MVP)

When building from scratch, it’s tempting to create the perfect product right away. However, that’s a recipe for over-commitment and delays. Instead, start with a Minimal Viable Product (MVP)—a version of the product that includes only the core features necessary to address the primary pain point.

The idea behind an MVP is to get something functional into users’ hands quickly. By doing this, you can start gathering real-world feedback that will shape the product’s future iterations. In my experience, working on an MVP also helps the team stay focused on essential features, preventing scope creep (like those unnecessary “ShaShka” features).

4. Prioritize Features

Once you’ve validated your product idea, the next crucial step is to determine which features to develop first. Not all features are created equal—some will have a much larger impact on your product’s success, while others may be nice-to-haves that can wait for later iterations. Effective feature prioritization helps keep your team focused, ensures efficient use of resources, and aligns your product with business goals. Here are some popular methods for prioritizing features:

Here are some common methods to help:

MoSCoW Method: Categorizes features into Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, and Won’t Have to simplify decision-making. I have shared some more insights here
Now, Next, Later: Organizes features based on timing—what to work on now, next, and later—ideal for agile teams.
RICE Framework: Prioritizes features based on Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort using the formula:
RICE Score=(Reach×Impact×Confidence)/EffortThis helps determine the highest-value features by balancing potential impact against the effort required.
Weighted Scoring: Assigns weight to different factors (e.g., customer engagement, revenue potential, technical complexity) and scores features based on these factors. The total weighted score determines the priority, allowing for a more objective, data-driven approach to feature prioritization.

These frameworks help ensure that teams focus on high-value features aligned with both customer needs and business goals.

5. Assemble a Strong, Balanced Team

A product is only as strong as the team behind it. When building a product from scratch, the team composition can make or break the project. You need a balance of technical and creative minds, alongside people who understand the business and market.

In my early career, I was often just part of the development team, while senior members made the core decisions. Now, as a product manager, I’ve learned that strong leadership isn’t just about telling people what to do—it’s about assembling the right people, empowering them, and creating a culture of open communication. Choose people who are flexible, passionate, and willing to wear multiple hats in the early stages.

Every team benefits from having alpha players—those high-performing individuals who bring a strong combination of skill, drive, and leadership. However, a product can’t thrive on alpha players alone; you need a well-rounded team with diverse strengths. To ensure balance, the Skill-Will Matrix is a valuable tool for assessing team members based on two dimensions:

Skill: Their ability to perform tasks effectively.
Will: Their motivation and drive to excel.

The Skill-Will Matrix divides team members into four quadrants:

High Skill, High Will: These are your natural leaders and alpha players, capable of delivering high-quality work with minimal guidance.
High Skill, Low Will: Skilled team members who may lack motivation. You’ll need to re-engage them through new challenges or meaningful projects.
Low Skill, High Will: Motivated individuals eager to learn. With the right guidance and training, they can grow into valuable contributors.
Low Skill, Low Will: These members may need extra attention to assess whether they can contribute effectively or if other roles suit them better.

6. Stay Agile and Iterate

Building a product from scratch requires flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, customer feedback, and new insights. Adopting an Agile mindset from the start ensures that your team can iterate quickly, make adjustments based on real-time data, and stay aligned with business goals. The core principle of Agile is continuous improvement, delivering value in small increments, and being responsive to feedback.

Regardless of the Agile framework you choose—whether it’s Kanban, Scrum, or another—incorporating key ceremonies can significantly streamline development and keep your team aligned:

Daily Standup: A brief, daily check-in where team members share progress, challenges, and next steps to ensure transparency and alignment.
Retrospective: A regular reflection on what went well and areas for improvement, promoting continuous growth and process refinement.
Align with Roadmap: Frequent reviews to ensure current tasks align with the overall product vision and long-term objectives.
Limit Work in Progress (WIP): Restrict the number of tasks in progress to enhance focus and reduce inefficiency.
Backlog Grooming: Regularly prioritize and refine the backlog to ensure the team is always working on the most valuable tasks.
Sprint Planning: Set clear, achievable goals for each sprint, keeping the team focused on delivering impactful features.

7. Engage Stakeholders Early and Often

Communication with stakeholders—whether they’re investors, customers, or internal team members—is key to the success of any product. Startups sometimes make the mistake of involving stakeholders too late in the process, which can result in misaligned expectations.

When we built a proof of concept under a tight deadline, we lost focus by trying to please too many stakeholders at once. This taught me the importance of clear, continuous communication and expectation management. Engage stakeholders early, and make sure they’re part of the decision-making process throughout.

A stakeholder communication plan ensures that the right people receive the right updates at the right time. This plan includes identifying stakeholders, determining communication frequency, and choosing appropriate methods like emails, meetings, or reports.

Interest vs. Influence Matrix

The Interest vs. Influence Matrix categorizes stakeholders based on how much they care about and impact the project:

High Interest, High Influence: These are your primary stakeholders, such as key decision-makers and executives. They require frequent, detailed communication through meetings, progress reports, and real-time updates. Keep them closely involved in major decisions.
High Interest, Low Influence: These stakeholders care about the project but may not have decision-making power. Use regular updates via email or presentations to keep them informed, ensuring they feel included in the process.
Low Interest, High Influence: Stakeholders with influence but low day-to-day involvement (e.g., senior leaders). Provide periodic, high-level updates to keep them in the loop without overwhelming them with details.
Low Interest, Low Influence: These stakeholders don’t require frequent updates. Minimal communication like status emails or quarterly reports may suffice, ensuring they’re aware of the project but not deeply involved.

Tailor your communication mode—meetings, emails, or dashboards—to fit each group’s needs, ensuring everyone stays aligned throughout the project.

8. Prepare for Scaling

As your product grows, so will its demands. To handle increased traffic, users, and data, it’s essential to build your technical infrastructure with scalability in mind from the outset. Failing to plan for growth can lead to performance bottlenecks, higher costs, and operational headaches down the road. Here’s how to prepare for scaling effectively:

Scalable Architecture: Design a flexible, scalable architecture that can handle growth without requiring complete overhauls.
Database Selection: Choose a database that can scale horizontally (adding more servers) or vertically (upgrading server capacity) as data grows.
Development Frameworks: Select development frameworks with proven scalability and strong community support. Having a robust community behind the tools you use ensures you can access resources, updates, and troubleshooting support when scaling challenges arise.
Monitoring and Performance Tools: Integrate tools for monitoring system performance, load balancing, and error detection.

By building scalability into your product from the beginning, you can avoid technical bottlenecks, reduce costs, and ensure your product continues to perform smoothly as demand increases.

Conclusion: Focus on the Infinite Game

Building a product from scratch is a complex but rewarding journey, especially for startups. Success comes from more than just technical skills—it requires clear vision, effective validation, thoughtful feature prioritization, and assembling a strong, balanced team. Staying agile and engaging stakeholders early ensures your product evolves in alignment with both market needs and business goals.

Scalability is another critical factor to consider from the beginning, as your product will grow, and so will its demands. By planning for this growth—whether through scalable architecture, robust tools, or efficient frameworks—you’ll prevent bottlenecks and ensure smooth operations down the road.

Ultimately, the key to success is staying adaptable, learning from mistakes, and focusing on delivering real value. With the right mindset, tools, and team, your product will be well-positioned to thrive and make a lasting impact in the market.